


Ghosts and Memory

by BiJane



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Classic Doctor Who References, F/F, F/M, Missy just lays there and snarks, Missy's Death (Doctor Who), More a hopeful ending than a happy ending, Post-Episode: s10e12 The Doctor Falls, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Regeneration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 03:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23318581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BiJane/pseuds/BiJane
Summary: The Doctor had a question.What happened to the Master? The last she’d heard, Missy was at least trying to be better, before she’d vanished on the Mondasian ship. Then the Master came back in a new incarnation and a new, crueller disposition. Of course, finding out the answer to that question would mean recklessly bending, if not outright breaking, the Laws of Time and going back to meet Missy in the wrong order. It’s a terrible idea.But back on the ship, what awaits her is more tragic a find than she’d expected. Missy is dying, and something that isn’t quite human stalks the survivors of the Cyberman attack. Maybe there’s no happy ending here.
Relationships: The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Ghosts and Memory

**Author's Note:**

> So let’s just ignore the very end of the last episode. Post-Timeless Children, but everyone’s travelling together anyway because why not? Follows up from Timeless Children and The Doctor Falls.   
> It's always fun headcanoning ways the Master survives various episode endings, up until it gets angsty. So here we are. 
> 
> Thirteen/Missy, with references to more general Doctor/Master, and mostly platonic thasmin, honestly you can read whatever you want into whatever happens after but apparently when I write Yaz it also turns into 'Yaz has a huge crush on the Doctor' regardless of whether or not it's going to be reciprocated. Still, this story is focused on Thirteen/Missy, albeit in a more Time Lordy than human romantic sense.

The Doctor had been staring at the TARDIS console for the past half hour. In of itself, her being weird wasn’t a surprise. She just normally tended to be more active about it.

Graham, Ryan and Yaz stood together in another corner of the console room, eyeing her awkwardly. Ryan nudged Yasmin; Yasmin elbowed him back, silently trying to decide who was going to go over and see what was happening.

Gone was the Doctor’s usual, slightly manic, disposition. Instead she was pensive, thoughtful, uncharacteristically so. Every few minutes she took a step towards the console, then backed out of it and retreated to where she was.

Eventually, it was Yaz that sighed and walked over.

“Doctor?” she said.

The Doctor blinked, at long last looking away from the console.

“Oh, er, hi, when did you get back?” she said. “I’m pretty sure humans sleep.”

“Huh? That was hours ago,” Yaz said.

“Was it?” the Doctor said. She glanced guiltily back at the console. “Oh. Sorry.”

“What’s going on?” Yaz said. “You’ve been staring at it for ages.”

“Just… making a decision,” the Doctor said.

She fell silent, gaze returning to the array of levels and dials. Yaz looked from her to the console, silently bewildered, before shooting an uncertain look over to where Ryan and Graham stood.

Graham shrugged at her.

“Anything we should know about?” Yaz tried, eventually.

“It’s super-risky, completely pointless, won’t change anything, and could get everyone killed or worse,” the Doctor said. “But it… will answer a question I had. And might mean closure. I don’t know _what_ it’ll mean actually, come to think of it, I just…”

“Do you want to do it?” Yasmin said.

“Kinda,” the Doctor said. She winced. “But I shouldn’t, like, _really_ shouldn’t. I set the coordinates, but by the time I had… There are laws to this whole time travel thing, and it breaks a couple of them, and bends a few dozen more. It’s a bad idea.”

“But you want to?” Yaz said. “Whatever it is.”

The Doctor looked at her and nodded, once. There was an unnervingly uncertain glint in her eyes, a sadness Yaz wasn’t used to seeing.

All the more reason, Yasmin decided, and without a word walked over to pull the lever herself.

“Yaz, don’t-”

The lever came down, and the familiar wheezing of the TARDIS engines filled the chamber. The Doctor faltered, arm-outstretched, staring in a mix of horror and relief.

* * *

Nardole threw a log into the fireplace, before moving back. It had been a week. One whole week since he’d been left here; he’d fled with the other survivors to this floor of the Mondasian ship, the cybermen left far behind.

They were still setting everything up, but things had begun to take shape. The faux-forest of the ship’s interior gave them all the resources they’d need, log cabins and campfires and a decent supply of food, stretching on into the distance.

He could almost forget that he wasn’t on a planet.

It looked like one. Slightly foggy, lots of trees, a couple of hills, and a few dozen small houses made of wood and twine gathered around a burnt-out fire. A penned-out field marked what might one day be a farm, a handful of children played in a corner of the square, and a handful more teenagers and adults sparred in another corner. Fear of the cybermen returning hadn’t gone away.

Nardole looked out the window (no glass, little more than wooden bars), then tottered to a stool he’d made himself.

One week. It was strange how relaxing things were. It figured, really. He might be on a cybermen ship, but as far as they were concerned the unconverted had been destroyed in the explosion that devastated the other floor, they weren’t looking for them any more. He was in one of the most dangerous places in the universe, but as soon as the Doctor stopped being around, things calmed down.

There was a knock at the door.

Frowning, Nardole stood back up. He walked over, opened the door, and saw a woman standing there.

He blinked.

“Ah! Humpty!” Missy said.

She fell over. Nardole squeaked.

Things had been going _so_ well.

Now he had a mass murderer collapsed on his floor. Nardole stared for a long few seconds, waiting for some twitch, some sign, half-afraid she was going to jerk up and grab him. She didn’t move.

After a few moments more, Nardole sighed, and crouched. He dragged her to a bed set up across a corner of the room, a few springier sheets pulled over the ground, and rolled her over.

Her eyes were closed. Her wild, dark hair was even messier than usual, some trailing in the dirt, some half-covering her face. Nervously, he pressed his hand to her neck, trying to find her pulse.

There! Two of them. Weak, slow, and slowing, but there. He wasn’t sure whether he was relieved.

Carefully, he backed away to the far side of the room, sat down again, and didn’t take his eyes off her.

She wasn’t meant to be here. She was meant to be gone! And, okay, the Doctor had been optimistic about her, but she was still the Master. He’d never been completely comfortable with the Doctor’s friendliness around her.

Someone else knocked at the door. Nardole made another nervous squeak, and slowly stood up again. He sidled to the door, keeping both eyes still on the unconscious Missy, before forcing himself to turn around and open the door.

Now there were four people stood there. The blonde, standing at the front of the group, took one look at him and grinned.

“Brill!” she declared, and hugged him.

Nardole made a few vaguely distressed squeals. After a few moments, the blonde stepped back.

“Hi,” the blonde said. “Nardole, this is the fam, Yaz, Ryan and Graham. Fam, this is Nardole, an old friend.”

Nardole stared. The three behind the woman gave a chorus of hellos. He continued to stare.

“Oh no,” he said. “It’s you.”

The Doctor beamed at him.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to drop in,” she said. “Well, kind of did, always meant to come back and make sure you were getting on, but I’m terrible at sticking to a plan. Won’t be a bother. Just wanted to check on, er, something, then we’ll be out of your hair. Oops, poor choice of words. Still. I… Nardole?”

He was swaying gently on the spot, occasionally quickly glancing back over her shoulder. The Doctor slowed down the breakneck speed of her talking to pause, take a breath, and look down at herself.

“Oh, right, yeah,” she said. “I regenerated.”

“I… noticed,” Nardole said faintly. “You’re a…”

“Yup!”

“You’re a _hugger_ ,” he managed.

She grinned happily. Behind her, the other three still seemed confused.

“Shouldn’t really be here,” the Doctor said. “Just wanted… Missy.”

Nardole squeaked again.

“There’s still a Time Lord bio-sign on the ship,” the Doctor said. Her energy suddenly seemed to fade, tone becoming serious. “I wondered if… I don’t know, if you’d seen anything. Might not even be her, I just wanted…”

Nardole took a step to the side, mute, and revealing the still figure behind him. The Doctor’s words trailed off.

“That was fast,” the Doctor said eventually. She took a breath, then looked at Nardole. “Thank you. Really.”

Then she dashed past him. Still swaying, Nardole responded with a whimper of acknowledgement, mind still struggling to catch up with everything that had happened.

Five minutes ago he was tending to the fire and wondering which direction was best to expand the village in. Now he had a psychopath on his bed, the Doctor was back, was a woman, was _friendly_ , and three more strangers on his doorstep.

What?

“Er, hi?” the one she’d called Graham broke the silence, waving a little awkwardly. “Mind if we come in?”

Nardole turned around. The Doctor was kneeling by Missy’s bedside, peering at her in confusion and concern, apparently having forgotten the rest of the world. Nardole coughed, and turned back to the new three companions.

“Make yourselves at home,” he said.

There were two major rooms in Nardole’s little wooden hut. The main room, with the main door, a divider, and the bed, had been the first part of it to be built. Eventually he’d appended this little extension when it turned out people actually wanted his opinion on things, so he had a place to sit and talk things over.

The door was wide open, leaving the Doctor and Missy in full view as Nardole, Graham, Ryan and Yaz went to sit down in the other room.

“So. Who’s she?” Ryan said.

“What?” Nardole said. He looked back.

“You know the Doctor, right?” Yaz said. “She doesn’t always… explain things. She said something about how she shouldn’t come back here, then when we landed told us to stay in the TARDIS.”

“She just sort of sighed when we followed,” Graham said. “I think she’s getting used to it.”

“And apparently she was looking for her,” Yaz said, gesturing into the other room. “Not that she’s said anything yet.”

Nardole looked between the three. The buzzing at the back of his mind was starting to fade.

“Have you heard of Missy?” Nardole said.

The three looked at each other. The general expressions of confusion and shrugs answered that.

“She’s an old… friend of the Doctor’s,” Nardole said. “Which says more about his- her taste than anything else.”

He took a breath, then started to explain the basics. It seemed like the Doctor wasn’t going anywhere. He talked about the vault, Missy promising to be better, and then finally coming to this place, meeting a past incarnation, the Master-

“The who now?!” Graham suddenly interjected.

Nardole paused. Judging by the equally disturbed looks on the three’s faces, apparently they had heard of Missy after all. 

“The Master,” Nardole said. “The regeneration before Missy. I think he was Harold Saxon.”

“Wait, hold on,” Yaz said. “Our _Prime Minister_ was an amoral power-hungry killer?” She paused. “Okay, no, that’s not new, but the _Master?_ ”

“ _That’s_ the Master?” Ryan said.

He gestured to the other room again. The Doctor was still crouched by her side. Nardole grimaced.

Okay. Apparently this was going to take some explaining.

He started again, giving what background he knew, still sparing the occasional glance for the other room. He wasn’t sure what to make of the fact they knew the Master; it certainly didn’t seem like the Time Lady in the other room had much life left. If she was weak enough she’d collapsed just by coming over, she ought to have regenerated by now.

Instead she was lying there.

As Nardole talked, and as the others listened, something else watched. It passed close by the window, unseen, a humanoid figure that lingered in place, too stiff to move.

It peered inside for a long moment, face unable to change, but something had caught its attention.

And then it was gone.

* * *

Missy stirred.

The first thing she registered was the bone-deep ache. She sent a very cross message from her synapses to her pain receptors, and was gratified to feel the ache lessen slightly.

The next thing she registered was a sense of familiarity. There was a hand on hers, and while the feel of the hand was strange, the feel of the person behind it was anything but. Missy struggled, willing herself back to awareness.

“Dramatically walking out on you is very hard to do if you will insist on following me,” Missy said.

Her voice didn’t sound weak. She wasn’t sure how she managed that. She could feel her extremities shutting down already; there was a strange burning in her chest, part of her wanting so desperately to regenerate but the capacity for it burned out of her. Still, it struggled, it _tried_.

She opened her eyes. The stranger’s face with a friend’s eyes looked down at her, far too softly. It suddenly became very hard to be flippant.

“Missy,” the Doctor said gently.

“Doctor,” Missy said. “You’ve changed.”

“You didn’t leave,” the Doctor said, eyes wide.

Missy winced. She remembered that. The Doctor asking her and her past self to stand with him, and both of them walking past. Missy remembered considering, remembered debating telling the Doctor what she was planning, but he’d have stopped her, even then. Killing wasn’t his way.

She’d killed her past self, but not before…

“For all the good it did me,” Missy said. She shifted, then groaned. “You didn’t mention this part of the whole being good lark.”

“I’m sorry,” the Doctor said. “If I’d known-”

“Oh, hush,” Missy said. “I got shot by a devastatingly handsome genius, it happens, you wouldn’t have been able to stop it.”

“Is it-”

“Yes,” Missy said.

The Doctor’s expression fell further. Missy didn’t know how she’d been holding onto hope as long as she had been; then again, that was always the Doctor’s way.

They knew each other too much to need full sentences. It was clear what the Doctor was going to ask; is it permanent? Is this it? Was it enough to prevent her regenerating?

Missy groaned as a few more nerve clusters gave up the ghost.

“Took me ages to crawl down here,” Missy said. She paused. “I… don’t know why I did. My body’s dying, even if I can feel it fighting. I just don’t want to be lying in the middle of nowhere when I go.”

The Doctor said nothing. What _was_ that look in her eyes?

“It’s not easy to kill a Time Lady,” Missy said. “ _Really_ not easy to kill me. I guess I should be flattered I’m the one that managed it.”

She was dying. She just wasn’t dying quickly. Even unable to regenerate, her body was trying, symbiotic nuclei firing, futilely trying to repair the damage and succeeding only in delaying the inevitable.

Her knees were grazed, her fingers bleeding, from how she’d crawled just to get there. It was something of a miracle she’d managed to stand when the door opened, but she wasn’t going to be on her knees for one of the Doctor’s friends.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Missy said, as the Doctor opened her mouth to talk. “You of all people don’t get to look at me like that.”

“I… wanted to be here,” the Doctor said. “I didn’t know what had happened, I didn’t think… I was so sure you’d made it out, I just wanted to know how, I didn’t think you’d be…”

“Still catching you by surprise,” Missy said.

She laughed, and it turned into a cough, then a groan at displaying weakness. The Doctor gently squeezed her hand.

“Don’t,” Missy said.

Quickly, the Doctor withdrew her hand. Missy relaxed just a little.

“I guess I always imagined you being there when I croaked,” Missy said. “Though this isn’t quite what I imagined.”

“Never is,” the Doctor said. “For what it’s worth, I hoped I’d be there too.”

Missy smiled, and unwillingly closed her eyes again. The Doctor lingered, knelt near her, watching as she fell again into unconsciousness.

She didn’t know how long Missy had left. Most Time Lords wouldn’t last this long from the event that killed them, but then the Master wasn’t most Time Lords.

She might have days. Not pleasant days, not easy days, but days of sheer stubbornness and willpower refusing to let go of her last, tenuous grasp on life.

The Doctor looked down at her, sympathy more than sadness in her eyes.

There was a knock on the door behind her. It was the inside door, connecting to the other room of the house; Yaz was standing in the threshold, knocking more to announce her presence than anything.

The Doctor breathed a sigh of gladness, turning and straightening and quickly schooling her expression.

Yasmin faltered. She wasn’t used to seeing the Doctor like this. She knew the Doctor as confident, as excitable, and rarely, very rarely, as scared, as angry. A Doctor that was hurting, though, that she wasn’t sure how to deal with.

“Doctor?” Yaz said.

“Hey Yaz,” the Doctor said, wearing a smile that didn’t reach her eyes nor lift her voice. “Where are the others?”

“They went to check out the place,” she said. “I stayed, I was… Nardole said she’s the Master.”

The Doctor looked down to Missy, then back up. She offered a guilty smile.

“Sort of,” the Doctor said.

“Sort of?”

“Well, yes, she is,” the Doctor said. “But she was the best Master. She _tried_ , she became better, she’s not like the one you know.”

Yaz hesitated.

“So she’s his… future?” Yaz said. The Doctor hesitated.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I’m confused.”

“I thought he was next,” the Doctor said. “We generally meet in order, but this… She’s not getting better. Her hearts are failing, her ability to regenerate’s been cut off, there’s no way for her to become someone else.”

The Doctor’s voice became slightly more frantic as she spoke. It was more than confusion in her tone, there was fear.

Then she fell silent. She glanced down at Missy again, unable to look away for more than a few seconds before looking back. Missy looked almost peaceful like that.

Quietly, Yaz moved closer.

She wouldn’t pretend she understood. Her experiences of the Master were hardly good, but the Doctor said she used to be someone else, so maybe this wasn’t surprising. But if this ‘Missy’ was someone important, someone good, then they’d have to be a _really_ different person.

“They’re important to you?” Yaz said. “Even after everything he- they’ve done?”

“All that, the world domination schemes, that’s maybe twenty percent of our relationship,” the Doctor said.

Yaz looked at her. She coughed.

“Okay, fifty percent.”

The Doctor hesitated.

“Well, ninety,” the Doctor said. “But that ten leftover… it’s such a good ten, and I don’t want to give it up. They… No one’s born a monster, and I knew them when we were kids, before _any_ of this. You saw the Master at his worst, I knew them at their best.”

She struggled to find the words. Yaz regarded her, uncertain.

“If you say she’s better, I’ll believe you,” Yaz said. “But with _him_ , I don’t see it.”

The Doctor shifted, a little shaky. Before she could say anything else though, the door was flung open, an out-of-breath Ryan coming inside.

“Doctor, quick,” he said. “Sounds like something’s happened.”

* * *

The village was just a small collection of wooden huts, all primitive, surrounded by proto-farmland and untamed wilderness. There hadn’t exactly been any planned maintenance going on before they got there.

Only one field had been set up for crops so far. There were furrows dug in the soil, a path for a river to pass near to it, and now lying in the middle was a body.

The woman was splayed out, horrid burns creeping up her neck and the side of her face, an arm stretching out into the earth. It wasn’t clear how long she’d been there for.

Graham stood to the side of the field, expression twisted in sympathy, next to a farmhand called East. It had been East who’d found the body and cried out. Naturally, Ryan had run for the Doctor.

“The cybermen have found us,” East murmured, voice low.

Graham looked nervously off into the forest. He remembered them.

There was no movement just yet, no sign of anything amiss. The forest was still. Even so, something must have happened. No movement, no glint of metal, just trees and shadow.

East stood tall; he was far from young, but even someone with white overwhelming the colour in his hair had to work to get this colony stable. Despite the fear in his eyes, he stood firmly enough that Graham almost didn’t notice East was older than even him.

“They’re here?” Graham said carefully.

“Where are you _from_?” East said. “How did you miss them while we were fleeing here?”

“I mean, they’re close?” Graham said. “I thought they were defeated. That’s the impression I got.”

“They were,” East said cautiously. “But there are still some on the floors below, there have to be. The whole population can’t have come up. We hoped they wouldn’t know we were here, but they must have figured it out. None of us would have done that. Not now. I don’t know how any of us _could_.”

Disturbed, he looked again over the fence, the scorched body lying on the dirt. The burns covered a little of their cheek, but got worse the lower down the body they looked, the flesh of her neck awful and twisted, before it vanished beneath her clothes.

Certainly nothing any human was capable of.

“I found her!” Ryan called, suddenly jogging up.

Graham and East turned; the Doctor, Ryan and Yaz were approaching, the Doctor running ahead of all of them. Her expression was clouded.

“Um, sorry, who are you?” East said.

“Oh, right,” the Doctor said. “You remember back when the Cybermen were attacking, that grumpy white-haired scotsman that helped save you?”

“…Yes?”

“That’s me,” the Doctor said, grinning. “Anyway, what’s happened here?”

“That was- how was that-”

“Focus, er, what’s your name?”

“East,” he said.

“East! Great name,” she said. “There’s a body in the field, East. Tell me everything you know.”

He hesitated. She stared at him insistently, until he slumped slightly, forgetting his own confusion.

“I don’t know much,” East said. “She was planting crops – alone, there are a lot of jobs that need doing so we tend to split up – when I heard a scream. I came over and, well, I found her.”

The Doctor peered at him curiously. Then, quickly, vaulted over the fence to crouch by the woman’s body.

“What was her name?” the Doctor said.

“Alza,” East said. He hesitated. “Is that important?”

“I always prefer knowing someone’s name,” the Doctor said. “Let’s see... definitely burned, but burns aren’t fatal, and it doesn’t look like they did any harm that wasn’t superficial, I… hmm?”

“Doctor?” Graham said.

The Doctor stayed kneeling on the ground, fingertips brushing the burned skin. Her brow furrowed.

“Nothing human did this,” the Doctor said. She stood up. “The burns they _might_ manage, but it wasn’t the burns that killed her. Some kind of energy discharge hit her, but something else must have killed her; don’t know what yet, but that’s what happened.”

“So it is the cybermen!” East said.

“Not sure,” the Doctor said. “Could be. If it is, we’ll stop them again, don’t worry.”

East took a cautious step away, and a ripple of fear went through the scattered handful of villagers drawn by the discovery. Carefully, the Doctor left the field, moving slowly.

“Everyone!” she said loudly. “I don’t know exactly what happened to her, but there’s something dangerous out there. If you’re leaving the village, make sure someone knows where you’re going, and don’t go anywhere alone. If you’re staying in the village, try to be sure someone’s nearby. Stay safe. We’ll figure this out.”

She lasted a handful of seconds, then as soon as people were looking away, her face fell.

“I can’t deal with this right now,” she muttered.

A few more moments passed. She looked around, taking a tentative few steps past the field to look into the forest, before deciding not to. Her eyes settled on the ground; there were no footprints, no broken twigs. Cybermen were hardly light. If one had come that way, there’d be more obvious signs.

That didn’t rule them out though. Maybe the cybermen on this ship had invented cybermats by now; that was the problem with some of her adversaries, they never just stuck to one gimmick.

Quickly, she pulled out her sonic screwdriver, buzzing the forest more to make a point than anything. She didn’t really expect anything unexpected to register.

Then, tiredness beginning to show, she started to walk back.

“Oh. She’s supportive,” Nardole said.

Graham jumped as he suddenly appeared behind him.

“That’s new,” Nardole said. “I don’t know what to do when she’s being supportive. Do I need to be the grumpy one now?”

“I think you’re good,” Graham said.

“I hope so,” Nardole said. He sighed. “Why is it this all starts as soon as she arrives?”

* * *

A little impatiently, the Doctor strode into Nardole’s hut, mind whirring. She was glad she knew how to force a few considerations back into her subconscious; it was much easier to have that do all the work than it was to dwell on practicalities as well as everything else.

This wasn’t meant to be happening.

The plan had been simple. Come back, see how Missy had survived, _know_ what had changed her so. It wouldn’t change anything, it couldn’t change anything without causing some massively dangerous paradox, but at least she’d know.

Instead she found this. Her oldest friend was dying, the other Master must be from earlier in her timeline or something, and she couldn’t even dwell on _that_ because something dangerous had found the struggling village. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing it out of her eyes.

She was very used to the fact that her attempts at a quiet journey rarely if ever worked, but she _needed_ this.

The Doctor let herself collapse just beside Missy’s bedside. Silence came easily, a rare moment of calm, an even rare moment of calm with the Master.

Then the door opened. The Doctor closed her eyes, prepared herself for the inevitable chaos, and turned around; she brightened slightly when she recognised Yaz.

“Is it her?” Yaz said.

“Huh?”

“Someone died,” Yaz said. “Was it her?”

The Doctor hesitated, then followed Yaz’s gaze to Missy.

“What? No!” the Doctor said. “Why would you think-”

“She’s the Master,” Yaz said. “That’s what you said, and she’s here, and now people are…”

“Look at her,” the Doctor said. “She’s not like the one you knew, but even if she was, look at her. She wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone, not now.”

Yasmin faltered. The Doctor looked away.

That was another reason she shouldn’t have come, or at least should have waited. Her and the Master, it was hard to explain that to her companions, harder still to have them understand.

Not that she could blame them for their distrust. In any incarnation, the Master did very little to earn faith.

“You’re sure?” Yaz said. “Doctor, I know you care about her for some mad reason, but if it is her and people die because-”

“I know!” the Doctor interrupted. “It’s not. She was shot with something she couldn’t regenerate from, the only reason she’s still breathing it because a few cells haven’t accepted the fact it’s over yet. There’s no recovering from this. She’s _not_ going to become the one you met. She’s better, she chose to be better, that’s why she’s lying here.”

“Pish.”

The Doctor jumped, turning to see Missy stirring. She was looking up with one eye open; the Doctor paused, on instinct going back over what she said. She shouldn’t be worried about spoiling the future, she knew that, but she was still on edge.

“’No recovering from this,’” Missy quoted, her voice a high-pitched parody of the Doctor’s. “Honestly, your lack of faith in me is astounding.”

“You said-” the Doctor began.

“I can’t regenerate, I know,” Missy said.

“So you could be out there,” Yaz said.

Missy at last turned away from the Doctor, looking up to Yaz. She tilted her head.

“Who’s this one?” Missy said.

“Yasmin Khan,” Yaz said. “And I know who you are.”

“Well, _Yasmin Khan_ ,” Missy said, rolling her eyes. “Do I look like I’ve been outside?”

Her breathing was laboured, a sheen of sweat on her brow from just the minimal exertion she’d had so far. Yaz faltered.

Quickly, the Doctor took charge of the conversation.

“Missy, what did you mean?” the Doctor said.

“Oh please,” Missy said. “I’ve run out of regenerations plenty of times. You’re only on, what, your second cycle? _I’m_ the expert here, thank you very much.”

The Doctor coughed awkwardly.

“The Time Lords aren’t… here to give you a new cycle,” the Doctor said.

“Never stopped me before,” Missy said. “Come on, you were there for some of them.”

The Doctor faltered.

“There are… ways,” she conceded. “Workarounds. Not good ones. The regeneration energy is still inside her, even if there’s no out, or there’s not enough; changing appearance is the easy part, it’s healing that’s the problem. But it’s… possible to work around that, by taking someone else’s body.”

“Taking?” Yaz echoed. “What does ‘taking’ mean, Doctor?”

“What do you think?” Missy said. “Taking charge. I get close, and slip inside, possess them. This old body doesn’t matter any more because I’m in _them_ , they get spruced up a bit by regeneration, and I get to go around wearing them like a protective jacket, staving off whatever would have happened if this body had stayed unprotected. I use their health to avoid needing to heal myself.”

“Like I said. Not good ones,” the Doctor said. “The ways she’s survived before always came at a cost to someone else.”

“Well, yeah, but one of them was literally called Tremas,” Missy said. “Lit-er-all-y. You know how I like anagrams. He was practically begging to get bodysnatched.”

“It’s still murder,” Yaz said.

“Technically I saved him,” Missy said. “His whole planet was destroyed not long after. He only kind-of lived because I went off with his body.”

“His planet only got destroyed because you destroyed it,” the Doctor said.

“I’m choosing to see the positives,” Missy said. “I’m dying, and you’re getting hung up on technicalities? Honestly.”

Missy waved. She seemed to be enjoying Yaz’s glower.

“Not helping,” the Doctor said.

“ _Dying_ ,” Missy said again. “Don’t need helping, thank you very much.”

“You said you could recover,” Yaz said. “If you-”

“Yes, yes,” Missy said tiredly. She tutted. “I could. I’m not _going_ to, if that’s what’s got you all in a tizzy.”

“And why should we believe you?” Yaz said.

Missy pushed herself up until she was sitting, a little shaky, and met Yasmin’s eyes. It took her a few seconds to catch her breath.

“Look, if I’m going to bare my soul, I’m not doing it with you in the room,” Missy said. “Buzz off, there’s a dear.”

“You said she was nice,” Yaz said to the Doctor. The Doctor opened her mouth to reply, and Missy cut her off.

“Good,” Missy said. “No one said anything about being nice. Too much work.”

“Yaz-” the Doctor began.

She turned around apologetically; Yaz looked at her, disbelieving.

“Seriously?” Yaz said.

“I need to talk to her,” the Doctor said.

Yaz waited for a few seconds, half-expecting to be told the Doctor was joking. When the admittedly slightly guilty look in the Doctor’s eyes proved too much though, Yaz contented herself with a wary glower at Missy, before walking out the door.

The Doctor closed her eyes briefly, before looking back. She’d need to apologise later. It felt like she had a lot to apologise for lately.

Missy just quirked an eyebrow. Still, the Doctor knew bluster when she saw it; the Master had always been something of an expert at it, and Missy was no exception when it came to hiding vulnerability. She was dying. That was never easy.

“Yaz didn’t deserve that,” the Doctor said.

“Don’t care,” Missy said. “There are some things I’m not talking about with one of your pets in the room. Oh, sorry, _companions_. You can give me that, at least.”

The Doctor’s expression slipped. Pride. She didn’t want to begrudge Missy that, not now of all times. Her expression softened.

“I thought about dying,” Missy said. Her voice was soft, as if still not wanting to be overheard. “Hard not to when you do what we do. The things I saw… The things I _did_ , I came close more than once, and every time I raged against it. I was so good at that. I remember that every time I thought I was about to die, all I could think was _not now_ , _not yet_ , it never felt right.”

“Does it ever?” the Doctor said back, voice as quiet as Missy’s.

“Sometimes,” Missy said. “Sometimes you feel like you’ve done all you ever could, and anything else would just be… unnecessary. You never want to die, but if you _had_ to, some ways are easier than others, and I think that if this is it, I’d rather be proud of myself when I shuffle off this mortal coil than just raging along. If I killed again to survive, I’d live, but I’d just… live. I don’t want to go back to that.”

It was Missy that squeezed the Doctor’s hand then, even if she didn’t have the strength for much.

“It shouldn’t be this soon,” the Doctor said. “Not when we finally managed to be _friends_ again.”

“You won’t hear me complaining about a thousand more years,” Missy said, remarkably flippant given the circumstances. “But with him killing me, technically I’m still the winner, and I like who I am right now. It feels… right, somehow. Better than croaking on some tiny rock because I messed up a world domination scheme, that would just be embarrassing, and that was probably how it would have ended otherwise. I like who I am. With what I’d have to do to change, I wouldn’t. That’s all there is to it, really.”

The Doctor managed a faint smile.

“I’m trying to say thank you,” Missy said. She scowled. “And if you tell _anyone_ , I won’t have any qualms about going evil again to kill them, understood?”

“Gotcha,” the Doctor said.

“Good,” Missy said firmly, before slumping back, energy once more exhausted.

“And I’ll stay,” the Doctor said. “You shouldn’t have to be alone.”

“Ugh. I see _that_ attitude’s not changed with the new body.”

“Never will,” the Doctor said.

Missy made no move to pull her hand away.

* * *

Night came. The Doctor, Yaz, Ryan and Graham squeezed into an empty hut near Nardole’s, while Missy stayed where she was, leaving Nardole to rest on his own sofa.

Missy slept fitfully, a vague ache travelling up her arms and getting closer and closer to her hearts, a pain that turned to prickling before it became numbness. Lifetimes flashed behind her eyes as unconsciousness claimed her.

There were a lot of stories about death, across all cultures, and Time Lords were no exception (no matter how much they claimed to be above it all). It was hard to say how much was fever dream and how much was something more.

She imagined possibilities. She imagined a world where she had been able to stride back over the blasted landscape to stand beside the Doctor, hand-in-hand. She imagined accompanying him the first time he fled Gallifrey, all that time ago.

Sometimes she imagined the Doctor agreeing to go with her instead. Darker thoughts, but still strangely satisfying to explore in her mind.

Most of all, she mourned lost time. Thousands of years wasted because she’d rather burn worlds that enjoy them. Millenia lost to rage and glorying in the thrill of power, a joy that had never quite become contentment.

But she’d changed. Right at the end, she knew she was different, and she felt that it mattered in a way little else had.

_You’re not that. You aren’t friends, you were never friends_.

Missy was no stranger to voices in her head. She’d amassed a couple of dozen judgemental personalities over her long life, and if she cast her mind back she could almost imagine what each of them would think of her.

Some were less than flattering. Others, no matter how much they’d try to deny it, would understand.

That voice was none of them, yet it carried the same cadence.

_Don’t let her of all people ruin everything we could be._

“Oh bugger off, I’m trying to die in peace here,” Missy muttered.

_They’re nothing. Mayflies. Their lives would never amount to anything nearly as significant as saving us, and it’s just one life. What’s one measured against the trillions that died with our name on their lips? They don’t matter_.

Missy screwed her eyes shut, trying to shut out the voice of the familiar stranger. Still, it whispered far at the back of her mind, trying to stir the parts of her she’d tried to repress.

_We owe the Doctor nothing. Don’t die for them._

“I’m not doing anything for the Doctor,” Missy murmured.

She clenched her hands to fists and willed herself awake, forcing her way out of unconsciousness.

Her eyes opened, and she beheld a dark, silent room, devoid of any voices or any person. A long, shaky breath escaped her lips.

Sleep wasn’t easy.

* * *

Another death. Nardole stood tiredly on the outer limits of the village; a woman had come back, the man she’d been partnered with to go harvest resources had been the next victim. The woman was breathless, slightly frantic, embodying the panic that was beginning to sweep through the village.

“It looked like a man,” she was saying. “I only saw it for a moment, but it shone. It must have been metal.”

Others were sharpening sticks, or threading twine to try and make traps, murmuring and watching.

“I knew they’d follow us!” someone else said.

“It only had to touch him,” the woman whispered, horrified. “He screamed as soon as it did, and there was a crackle like lightning. I couldn’t get a good look. It shone so brightly.”

“Now hold on,” Nardole said.

He stepped forward, then faltered. He wasn’t good at speeches. He was still struggling to work out how he’d ended up as de facto leader, beyond just association with the one that had helped them flee down here.

“You only saw one?” he said. “That doesn’t mean all the cybermen know where we are. They haven’t all attacked us yet. It could just be a straggler.”

It wasn’t calming the people as much as he’d hoped.

“Stay in the village,” he said. “The Doctor will sort this out.”

He lowered his voice as he turned away to mutter.

“She’d better.” Even if she seemed far too distracted at the moment.

* * *

Another day passed, and the Doctor barely left Nardole’s hut. She’d acknowledged the sighting of the figure, but had distractedly said the villagers seemed to have it handled, and then gone right back to Missy’s side.

She waited there even while it seemed like Missy wasn’t going to wake up. She crouched, no matter how uncomfortable it was, and it wasn’t entirely obvious whether she was thinking about the village or her friend.

Nardole knew what he wanted to think. Then again, he didn’t know this new Doctor, he just had hope. Yes, she was distracted, but the Doctor would never let that get in the way; then again, perhaps she was right. She was hardly one to go out and wrestle a cyberman.

If she thought the villagers’ traps would be enough with all the information available to them, then he’d trust it was.

Unless, of course, she knew something they didn’t.

Nardole paced around for a bit, trying to get a vague feel for the mood of the village, before he returned home. Quietly, he opened the door.

And he froze.

There was someone in the main room. It was tall, and it _shone_. It was barely possible to make out a face on the gleaming figure or do anything beyond get a vague indication of its outline. Human, two arms and two legs, but bright white and indistinct. Baggy clothes or rippling light covered a lean figure, and a faceless head looked back at him.

It was stood over Missy. And then it looked at Nardole, and reached out for him with a fingerless hand.

Nardole screamed.

He stumbled back, and the figure seemed to pursue, lumbering nearer for just a step before the Doctor burst out of the other room. Her eyes widened as soon as she saw it.

“Get out!” she shouted.

The… thing slowed. It lowered its long, hazy arm and turned again. When it looked away, the energy that masked its head faded somewhat, revealing the hollows of eyes and a crack of a mouth, but it was all devoid of any personality. A blank canvas.

It looked at the Doctor. The Doctor glowered back, taking a wary step closer.

“You aren’t wanted here,” she said. “Leave.”

It looked at her again. Nardole shuddered.

It wasn’t even clear if the thing had registered what she’d said. As much as its body was featureless, so too did its manner lack any nuance. It stood prone without the slightest twitch, without anything in its posture indicating defiance or fear, lacking anything that might mark it as human. No, lacking anything that would even mark it as _living_ , it might as well have been a corpse slumped there.

Only the fact it was capable of movement did anything to dismiss that idea, but it was such a hollow kind of movement.

And then Nardole blinked and the room was empty.

The Doctor hurried over to where the thing had been standing and knelt again, gently shaking Missy; she was already awake, a look of resignation on her face.

“I did just see that didn’t I?” Missy said.

“Afraid so,” the Doctor said.

Nardole coughed.

“What was… was that the thing the villagers have been seeing?” Nardole said. His eyes widened. “Did it kill Alza? And Hirn?”

The Doctor’s face fell; Missy shifted slightly. Well that was enough of an answer.

And it certainly wasn’t any kind of cyberman he’d ever seen.

“What was it?” Nardole said.

“It’s…” the Doctor began. She hesitated.

“I rather think it’s me,” Missy said.

Nardole blinked. The Doctor sighed.

“I was going to break it more gently than that,” the Doctor said.

“But he makes such funny faces,” Missy said.

Nardole hastily, if petulantly, schooled his expression.

“You’d… better get the others,” the Doctor said wearily.

The Doctor slumped down, her tiredness more mental than physical. Nardole knew what disappointment looked like. That mannerism hadn’t changed too much.

Somehow he had the feeling he was going to wish it was just a cyberman by the time the day was done.

* * *

“We call it a Watcher,” the Doctor said.

Four faces were watching her, all in various stages of interest and wariness, while a fifth yawned openly from her position lying on the bed. Nardole, Yaz, Graham, Ryan and Missy, all there.

“And what’s one of them when it’s at home?” Graham said.

“I’m not an expert,” the Doctor said. “They’re not common, I’ve only had one a couple of times, but they’re like… reflections. When a Time Lord dies, it can be heralded by a… sort of manifestation, a figure that, well, watches. It’s supposed to let them know what’s coming soon, and that the moment’s prepared for. At least that’s what I always heard, they’re not totally understood, but for particularly complex space-time events, a regeneration is significant enough that the potential for it can, sometimes, cause a shadow back in time.”

The four faces remained just as confused. Missy sighed.

“It’s me,” she cut in. “What I _could_ be.”

“I thought you said she can’t regenerate,” Ryan said.

“She can’t,” the Doctor said. “But she’s still, theoretically, got the biological ability of doing so. It’s tricky. It shouldn’t be here, but somehow it found a way. It’s like… an echo before a sound, but if that sound never happened.”

The four looked no less baffled.

“Usually they just… sort of stand there,” the Doctor said. “If I see them, they’re usually just in the distance. Sometimes I don’t even know for sure it is there. I thought I saw one in Trenzalore, but I was so sure that was just, well, a person standing in a field. Now I’m not so sure. You saw how I was when I regenerated, it took me a while to adjust to everything, there are side-effects; just think of this as side effects that go the wrong way, causally speaking. I’m a Time Lord, not everything happens in the right order.”

She smiled hopefully.

“I don’t think they’re getting it,” Missy stage-whispered.

The Doctor’s face fell, even while Missy salvaged what little amusement she could from the situation.

“So this… Watcher,” Graham said. “It’s doing a bit more than just standing there.”

“Yeah,” the Doctor said. “Some can be more active than others. It all depends on… stuff I don’t totally understand, but they’ve been known to interfere. It just doesn’t want to do nothing.”

“And it- she’s killing people,” Yaz finished.

The Doctor grimaced.

“I think it’s trying to figure out a way to make her regenerate,” the Doctor said. “Or the closest she can.”

“Steal someone’s body, you mean,” Yaz said.

“It’s self-preservation. It only exists if she continues,” the Doctor said. “So it’s trying to stoke its own potential, but it can’t. It _won’t_. The burns, the energy discharge, it wasn’t cyber-weaponry, it was that thing trying to pour raw temporal energy into those people’s heads. It failed, it’s too… untamed, too undefined to take a host.”

“But people are still dying,” Ryan said.

“I know,” the Doctor said. She started pacing, closing her eyes. “I know, I didn’t think it would have the strength for that, but it can only last until its potential is snuffed out, and I think it’s learned its lesson. It won’t just keep killing people for no reason. It wants…”

She hesitated.

“It wants me,” Missy said. She sighed. “What she’s _trying_ to say is that it’s just a mishmash of possible incarnations, it needs to be close to me to ground it so that it can _then_ take someone else. Hence why it was in here earlier. Keep up.”

For all her flippancy, her voice sounded hollow. It wasn’t defeated, she’d never be that, but she did sound remarkably brittle.

Explaining minor aspects of one of the more complex parts of being a Time Lord wasn’t easy. Still, the four seemed closer to grasping it, even if they had a lot of questions they knew they’d never understand the answers to.

The Master’s Watcher was stalking the village, searching for a life to take that Missy might survive.

“I don’t think he’s going to be as nice as me,” Missy said, voice suddenly hollow.

Yaz scoffed. The Doctor just winced.

“We won’t let that happen,” the Doctor said.

“Can we stop it?” Yaz said, softer.

“We _will_ ,” the Doctor said. “There’s always a way-”

“Doctor,” Yaz said.

She still spoke quietly. She didn’t like Missy, she wasn’t going to make any secret of that, but she cared for the Doctor and she was never going to relish in something that caused the Doctor pain. Even if she didn’t have the foggiest why the Doctor cared about the psychopath so much.

The Doctor’s expression cracked, just slightly, before she looked warningly at Yaz. Undeterred, Yaz continued.

“…Missy,” she said. “Have you met us before?”

“What?” Missy said, mildly annoyed. “No, of course not. What’s that in aid of?”

The Doctor closed her eyes. Yaz wondered if she’d been thinking of that herself, and then found herself wondering why the Doctor hadn’t asked it herself. Had she not wanted to know?

Not that they had a choice.

“It doesn’t matter,” the Doctor said.

“Oh!” Graham said suddenly. “I get it, if she doesn’t know us then that means Agent O must be from-”

“Graham!” the Doctor interrupted.

“No,” Missy said. “Go on.”

Graham faltered.

Almost everyone was speaking with quiet voices. With Yaz, it was sympathetic; when Missy spoke like that, though, she just sounded dangerous.

“Did you know?” Missy said in that low, soft, dangerous voice.

The Doctor hesitated.

“Doctor?” she said.

“I wasn’t sure,” the Doctor said hastily. “It could have meant anything, it was a possibility but _everything_ was a possibility, I hadn’t ruled out robot doppelgangers until five minutes ago. I-”

“Did. You. Know?”

“I… yes.”

Missy inhaled a deep, rattling breath. She shifted, propping herself up as best she could with her failing body, sheer force of will dispelling any frailty.

“How dare you,” she hissed.

“Missy-”

“I’m talking,” she said. “I told you. I told you I would rather die than be anything like I _was_ again, I poured my hearts out to you, and you just sat there knowing it was for nothing. And I’d probably have noticed too if one of my brains hadn’t given up a day ago. You let me think I was just dying, you let me be relieved.”

“It wasn’t-”

“And what’s worse,” Missy managed to raise her voice with only the slightest tremor. “Worse than all that, you treated me like _them_. You tell those companions of yours little stories so they won’t ask too many questions, or won’t be scared too much, you can do that, but you don’t lie to _me_. Not to _me_. We have more than that, Doctor. You don’t lie to _me_.”

She stared, just daring the Doctor to say something, for the better part of a minute.

Then, breathlessly, Missy slumped back. Her eyes drifted shut as she lay down.

She was shaking just slightly. However much she’d kept her voice together, the exertion had plainly taken its toll. The Doctor didn’t move for long moments.

She knew. Something would happen, the Watcher would force some bastardised equivalent to a regeneration, and the Master they knew would surface. Not all incarnations of a Time Lord had the same personalities or values, and it didn’t matter what Missy had lived through if the next in line wasn’t of the right mind to follow through.

It was the scariest part of regeneration. Not unlike dying, you never knew what would happen next. You just prayed you’d still be you.

Sometimes, most of the time, you were. But when who you were now was such a small fraction of who you’d always been, it was harder.

This wasn’t fair.

“I’ll stop it,” the Doctor said. “I’ll find a way, You won’t… You won’t become him.”

She said nothing. It wasn’t entirely clear whether Missy was still conscious.

And then the door was flung open. The four companions jumped, while the Doctor winced, for a brief moment showing her exhaustion.

“Not now…”

It was Graham that took the lead, standing up and greeting the man in the doorway, recognising him after a moment.

“East!” he said. “Sorry, things are a bit hectic in here. What’s going on?”

The man looked around the room for a moment, confused. Missy was lying on her back and staring upwards at the ceiling, while the Doctor knelt beside her and looked on the verge of collapse, and Ryan, Yaz and Nardole were sat on a series of chairs by the wall.

Quickly, East made his attention return back to Graham.

“I wanted to talk to Nardole,” he said. “There’s panic. If the cybermen have found us…”

“They haven’t,” Nardole said. He stood up. “Misunderstanding. Very confusing misunderstanding. We’re working on it.”

“What?” East said. He blinked. “I… believe you, but I don’t know if it’ll make any difference. People are scared. If they find us, whether they have already or will later, it’ll be another massacre. I think this just reminded everyone how helpless we are.”

Graham looked sympathetically at him, but turned to Nardole for support. He wasn’t really equipped to deal with the village’s specific needs.

Not that he’d know where to begin anyway. He wasn’t sure he’d ever feel safe on a floor of a cyberman spaceship, let alone encourage other people to be comfortable on one.

“Thanks for letting us know,” Nardole said. “We’ll see what we can come up with. Doctor?”

“I can’t,” the Doctor murmured.

“Oh come on.”

It was Missy’s voice. The Doctor jumped; Missy cracked one eye open, still barely moving.

“I’ve only got half my mind still working and I figured it out,” Missy said. “You can’t be struggling that much. All you need is for the cybermen to not look here.”

“Not now, I just…” the Doctor murmured. Then her eyes widened, and she hopped up to her feet. “Oh, that’s brilliant! Ha!”

Missy smiled to herself, and closed her eye again. Everyone else looked around, confused.

“Doc?” Graham said.

The Doctor took a few steps forwards, either masking her pain or momentarily forgetting about it in the thrill of realisation. She spoke with renewed energy, her familiar vigour, gesturing with her hands even if it wasn’t entirely clear what it was she was meant to be depicting.

“The cybermen, ruthlessly logical, emotions and brains replaced by ultimately a computer,” the Doctor said. “No curiosity, if their database tells them something, they’ll believe it. Sending someone to check would be inefficient.”

“So you want to get to their database?” Nardole said.

“I’m a tinkerer now,” she said. She grinned at him. “If I can hack in a line or two about how, ooh, there was a leak on this floor and it’s not safe for cyber life-forms to spend any time here, they’ll never look. Maybe find something that could mess with their perceptions and blame that. But if I can do it believably, and cover my tracks, they’ll never know you’re here and never even try to look. You’d be ghosts. Even if they saw you, so long as you stayed on this floor, they’d never believe it!”

She was still beaming. East hesitated in the doorway, though her enthusiasm was infectious.

“You think that’ll work?” East said.

“If the Doc says it, it will,” Graham said. “She can pull off miracles.”

“And the cyber- the killer?” East said.

The Doctor’s expression clouded.

“It shouldn’t kill again,” she said. “I won’t let it.”

East hesitated.

“Trust me,” she said. “I know what it wants now. And it’ll take time, it must need to recover after manifesting to the degree it has. We have time.”

“Right, er, if you say so,” East said.

“Do you have maps of the area?” the Doctor said. “Even just sketches, whatever you remember from coming over here. I’ll need some kind of deep pit, better yet a pre-existing shaft that leads to the metal between levels. I should be able to access the ship’s mainframe from there. Once you find that, I can do it.”

“I’ll ask,” East said. He nodded. “Is that all?”

“Yup,” the Doctor said.

“Thank you,” he said. “Er…Doctor?”

She beamed at him. It was only when she turned away that the mask fell.

* * *

It was too dark to travel. They had time, at least; Yaz, Ryan, Graham, Nardole and the village could sleep, and she’d wait for first light.

Then she could head off and save the village from any potential future cyberman attack.

It was easy to think about. In reality, though, she was still overwhelmed. This was so much more than she’d wanted to deal with when she’d come here, especially now; it wasn’t often she had the urge to turn down an adventure. Not that she would have, she’d never be capable of doing that, but part of her longed to wait in the village.

Stay here, sat by Missy’s side, for as long as she needed.

But the village was panicking, and the more they panicked the more chance they’d unwittingly do something that would actually get the attention of the cybermen.

Their safety always had to be her priority. The Doctor knew that. It didn’t change the fact she still wanted to be here.

She didn’t need to sleep. She wouldn’t have, even if she did. She just watched.

Missy stirred again.

“Missy,” the Doctor said breathlessly. “I’m sorry. I promise, I wasn’t trying to trick you, it was just… complicated.”

Missy groaned.

“I’ve been awake for all of two seconds,” Missy said. “I can see four of you. Give me a moment.”

The Doctor fell silent. She was still shaking slightly, plainly desperate to speak; Missy stretched a little. Eventually she sighed, and nodded.

“I came here thinking you survived,” the Doctor said. “But when I saw you, I thought, I felt I was wrong. There were all kinds of things that could have happened, and I didn’t know for sure it was a Watcher until I saw it, I promise. And I hoped… we could still be wrong. I’ve lost a few memories before, some incarnations can be fuzzy, maybe you just forgot-”

“Doctor.”

“I… yes?”

Missy hesitated. Her voice was quieter now; it wasn’t gentle, it never was, but it was noticeably less harsh than it had been earlier. She didn’t have the energy for anger.

“I felt him,” Missy said, voice barely above a whisper. “He was _close_.”

“I’ll keep him away,” the Doctor said. Her expression twisted. “Though-”

“No,” Missy said.

“What?”

“I know that look,” Missy said. “ _Hope_. Don’t. You think maybe you’ll find some way to make me regenerate without killing someone, and without becoming him, even when you know it’s impossible. It’s kind of tedious.”

“Nothing’s impossible,” the Doctor said.

“Oh, spare me,” Missy said.

She rolled her eyes, then slumped.

“Doctor,” Missy said, voice quieter. “Don’t let me regenerate. Not even if you think you found a way.”

“Missy-”

“I _felt_ him,” Missy said. “He’s all fire and rage and self-importance, he’d laugh as the universe burned and love every second. He doesn’t care about any of it. But he hates you, I can feel that, he hates you for helping me change, making me not him. I don’t want to be that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t want pity,” Missy said. “I want you to promise you’ll let me die.”

She didn’t blink. The Doctor did.

“Promise me,” Missy said again. “I remember being like that, burning like all the stars in the sky, and if I become that again… I don’t know if I’ll be able to go back again.”

“I won’t let him reach you,” the Doctor said.

“That’s not what I asked,” Missy said.

“If it has to happen,” the Doctor said. She faltered, screwing her face up. “I’m never going to be happy with it, you know that.”

“Doctor,” Missy said again, insistently. “If our friendship has ever meant _anything_ to you, I am asking you, let this be it. I don’t _want_ more. More is just… more of the worst of me.”

There were a few more seconds of silence, and the Doctor rocked back. Gently, she took Missy’s hand again, even while Missy glowered impatiently.

“I was tired,” the Doctor said. “When I started in this body. I almost didn’t regenerate, not because something was stopping me, just because I didn’t want to. Then… well, I haven’t regretted it since.”

Missy sighed.

“I’m never going to give up on hope,” the Doctor said. “And I’d never wish for someone else to. I’ll help you, I promise, but if there’s another way to save you I will. There’s no guarantee you’ll turn into-”

“We both know better than that,” Missy said.

The Doctor opened her mouth to speak, then gave up. Sometimes it was hard to know what to say.

There was too much happening. This was just meant to be a reunion, a chance to see her friend again, and instead she was juggling a dozen problems in her head at a time.

“I can feel it,” Missy said, more quietly. “My body was fighting it earlier, and it still is, but I don’t think there’s much fight left in me.”

“I could stay,” the Doctor said. “I… don’t want to leave tomorrow. The cybermen haven’t found the village yet, we should be fine for another day. I can stay here.”

Missy said nothing. The Doctor closed her eyes.

“Except then they’d panic more,” the Doctor said. “I know. And the more they panic, the more danger there is, to them and to you.”

Missy smiled. The Doctor sighed, leaning lower, pressing her forehead to Missy’s hand for a moment.

“I want to be here for you,” she said. “If you don’t have long, I… I want to be here.”

“For me to snuff it, you mean?”

“To be there for you,” the Doctor said. “I don’t want you to be alone.”

Missy hesitated. Her eyes drifted shut for a moment, but she forced them back open, clenching near-paralysed hands into fists. No, she wasn’t going to drift off just yet.

“If you’re lying to me Doctor, I swear…” she murmured. “You’ve met my next incarnation, and you’re going to stand by while they get erased from existence? That’s irresponsible, even for you.”

“It _might_ be your next,” the Doctor said. “I don’t know, no one does, not for sure. Maybe you bumped your head a lifetime back. I can barely remember half of what my eighth self did. Who knows? And besides, even if it is a paradox, the Time Lords can stabilise it. They owe me.”

Missy eyed her for a long, long few seconds. She might almost have been impressed by the flicker of sudden fierceness in the Doctor’s tone. The Doctor tried to offer a hopeful smile. Somehow, Missy found herself giving a pale echo of it in response.

Hope was never that easy, but the Doctor’s word was something else.

A shudder ran through Missy.

“I don’t want to be that,” Missy said again. “Not again. I’m the best I’ve ever been, I can feel it, and I can feel how he wants to take that from me.”

“I know,” the Doctor said.

She lowered her head again, brushing Missy’s hand, remarkably tactile in her new body. It was oddly comforting.

“You can stop it,” Missy said, as insistently as she could manage. “Right here, right now.”

“Missy?”

“You want to be here when I die,” Missy said. “You’re here now. So do it.”

The Doctor straightened; she sat up, only to find Missy holding tightly onto her hand with what little strength she could muster. She squeezed.

There was a look in Missy’s eyes that scared her more than any of their previous confrontations.

“Doctor. Please.”

“Missy, no,” the Doctor said. “No. I’m not going to do that.”

“You’ve tried,” Missy said. “What’s different about now?”

“I never- I always knew you’d survive,” the Doctor said. Her voice cracked slightly. “I never thought you’d be gone, not even when I literally had your ashes in my hands. I knew you, I knew you’d find a way. This is different.”

“Because I’m asking you,” Missy said. “For once in my life I’m actually asking you to defeat me. Why is that the one time you can’t manage it?”

“Because I don’t want to lose you,” the Doctor said. She swallowed. “I don’t want to lose you. I want every second I can have. I know it’s selfish, but…”

She took a deep, long breath, steadying her shaking voice.

“I’m not going to… do that,” the Doctor said. “I _can’t_. I’ll see you again tomorrow morning, I’ll stop the cybermen finding us, then I’ll return and sit by your side until your last breath. I promise that. That’s all I can promise.”

Missy stared at her. The Doctor started shaking again, just slightly; Missy barely inclined her head.

Every second they could share.

“I’ll hold on that long,” Missy said.

The Doctor smiled, relieved. She squeezed Missy’s hand even as Missy’s strength waned and she fell, again, into haunted, dreamless unconsciousness.

No, this wasn’t what she’d wanted when she’d come here, nor was it at all close to what she’d expected. That didn’t mean she wouldn’t try her hardest.

* * *

Nardole would be honest, he was a bit overwhelmed. It was strange how easily he become, well, out of practise at dealing with all the Doctor’s usual shenanigans. How had he managed it day in and day out before?

The village had been quiet, tranquil despite the abundance of cybermen far below them, until she’d arrived.

That, and his hut had become something of a meeting place. He’d spent the day helping to assemble a few of the other shacks and residences; even with everything happening, life went on. Fear didn’t mean they weren’t still going to make this place a home.

Most of the time, though, no one worked at night. With no stars in the sky, the darkness was beyond belief.

He exhaled, a little tired after the day’s work, looking back to his home. The door was open.

“Wotcha!”

And that was the Doctor. He turned, still adjusting to her new… different body. She couldn’t have been much more different to the Doctor he’d known.

It had been hard to spend much time with her. Between Missy and the veritable army of companions she now travelled with, there had been a lot of distractions. That wasn’t helping him get any more used to the way things were.

He offered an unsteady smile.

“Nice place you have here,” the Doctor said. “Coming along well.”

“Yeah. We try,” he said. He paused. “Still mad at you for kicking me out here.”

“Aww,” the Doctor said. She pouted slightly. “Sorry, one of us had to. I’m not that good at staying in one place.”

“I had noticed,” Nardole said. “You’re not very subtle about it.”

“Subtle’s boring,” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. He chuckled, then paused, looking out. “I… don’t hate it.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Took a little getting used to, but it’s turning into a nice place. And nice people. It’s becoming something.”

“I’m glad,” the Doctor said. She smiled. “I don’t get to do this that often. Come back and visit, I mean, it’s nice to know you’re making it work.”

“You too,” Nardole said. “Travelling with three people then?”

“Yep, me and the fam,” the Doctor said. She grinned. “It just sort of happened. Kinda like it.”

He stared at her. The Doctor looked back over her shoulder to see if he was looking at something else.

“You’ve changed,” he said.

“Yup,” she said. “Regeneration, it happens.”

“I heard,” he said. “Seeing it’s different. Can’t imagine how River kept up with you all.”

“Takes a bit of getting used to on this end of it too,” the Doctor said. “Just have to shift a few things around. It’s more reorienting than it is changing, at least that’s how I like to think of it. And hey, look at you! Building a town, that’s a change too.”

“Mm,” Nardole said.

He smiled. She was so effusive, but a good word from her really felt like it meant something, even if she wasn’t as stingy as her predecessor.

And he was proud of this place. He hadn’t been sure he could manage any of it, not when he’d been charged with the task of making sure everyone settled and survived, but somehow he had.

It was still just half a town, and the merest fraction of what he hoped it _would_ become, but it did exist. He thought of it as a promise. One day, this place would be great.

“I am glad I’m here,” Nardole said.

The Doctor beamed.

“Thanks,” he said. Then he looked back, to his hut and the sleeping Missy, before facing her again. “But, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, I hope I never see you again.”

The Doctor tilted her head, then chuckled, nodding.

“I didn’t mean for this,” she said.

“I know,” he said.

“Still. Fair,” she said. She paused. “Hey, didn’t you say you were going to name a town after me?”

“A rubbish one,” Nardole said. “Or a pig. Pig’ll probably come first.”

“Oh, that’d be awesome!” she said. She grinned at him. “I might come back just to meet them. Sorry.”

Despite himself, Nardole found a laugh escaping his lips. She _was_ different.

“Well if it’s for the pig, I suppose it’s okay,” he said.

“Brill!”

* * *

_Contact._

It was hard to do anything but sleep, though Missy sometimes forgot that she wasn’t awake. It just seemed like her default now.

She could feel how close her time was. More nerves had failed, more of her body had gone numb, muscle fibres she remembered having now totally unresponsive. Death was creeping up her limbs and her body’s last, valiant efforts were fading.

And it was so, so easy to sleep.

_Is this really how you want it to end? Shot and forgotten on some insignificant little spaceship, is that what you think we deserve_?

She knew her own voice, even if that particular one was a new one. She recognised herself.

It echoed inside her head, more like words being written on the inside of her skull than any kind of sound. She tried to imagine a face to go with it, but just saw herself.

“Go bother someone else, I have more interesting things to be doing,” Missy said. She was fairly sure she was just thinking.

Reality and dream could blur together when her grasp on just living was getting tenuous. Behind her eyes, the face twisted.

_Tomorrow isn’t so far away. You could hurt her. Her friends would be so close and she’d be far away, all you’d need to do would be to reach out and take them._

“Oh will you shut up?” Missy ‘said.’ “Change the tune or let me sleep.”

_Are you that afraid of killing again?_

“Why are you acting like this is some kind of discussion? I’m not talking to you.”

_Afraid you’ll like it?_

Missy groaned, and gained a flickering image of the room as she stirred. She was alone, but at the end of the day the Watcher was her, the closer she got to the brink the closer she got to _it_. It fit into her head with too much ease.

She didn’t have the energy to block it out. Normally she was better than this with mental defences, but there was very little of her to defend with.

_You’re killing me. Do you think any of us would let that happen?_

“You’re not in the driver’s seat,” she snapped.

_Perhaps we should be. At least we admit how we feel_.

“Yeah, and how’s that then?”

_You hate her. You don’t want to admit it, but you do. Life was so much more fun before you let her in your head._

“What a compelling, persuasive argument,” Missy said flatly.

_Don’t you miss it? Worlds cried out your name, armies worshipped at your feet, and you didn’t need any of them. You enjoyed it, you enjoyed life. Remember the freedom. Wasn’t life so much easier before you gave up everything that made us who we are?_

“If I wanted an easy life, I would never have left home,” she said. “What’s the point of easy?”

White light burned behind her eyes. She could feel it pushing, probing, trying to find some way in; her scattered mental defences were enough to deal with that fumbled attempt though.

_Where do you think we’re heading? Our name is a promise, we were never going to end because we wanted to stand_ with _someone. We’re better. We are the Master. The Doctor can side with us when she kneels at our feet, anything else just won’t do. We’re better than her. We always have been_.

He was an angry one. He was just potential, just a voice in her head and a spectre in the air, and she could hear him snarling as if he were right next to her.

She would’ve shuddered if she’d had the strength. There was nothing quite like a regeneration to shine a light on the darker parts of herself, the parts she’d tried so very, very hard to push aside. Then again, people were as much their inhibitions as they were their secrets.

He could growl and rage, but he was only a voice, and he would only ever be a voice. She promised herself that.

“You aren’t me,” Missy said. “No matter how much you want to be. Not that I blame you, of course, who wouldn’t want to be me? But no, you’re just some pretender, some pathetic, pale shadow trying to be relevant again.”

_And you’re a corpse that hasn’t realised it’s dead. Do you want that?_

“You’ll die with me, sweetheart,” Missy said. “If I were you, if you’ll pardon the pun, I’d spend more time dealing with that than being a pest. You are not _wanted_ here.”

She pushed, jerking up on her bed for a moment, and the voice in her head faded. She groaned, and fell back to the floor, breathless, the silence in her head ringing.

Good riddance.

At least she wouldn’t have to bear it for much longer. She closed her eyes again; it was harder to stay awake than it was to let sleep claim her. Now, at least, it was a quiet sleep, devoid of echoing voices and without anything that could paint a dream.

That, at least, was a relief. She’d had such bad dreams before, memories she saw in a new, horrific light displayed anew for her eyes. Now whatever part of her mind was responsible for giving her those images had died.

For that night, and that night alone, Missy slept in peace.

* * *

When Yaz woke up, the Doctor was glowing.

No, that wasn’t entirely right. Yaz blinked a few times, clearing her eyes; it was just the Doctor’s hands. A soft, golden light was emanating from them, wisps of energy in the air as she trailed her hands across the walls of the hut.

There was a look of strain on her face. It wasn’t clear whether that was related to what she was doing.

Then she caught sight of Yaz waking up and grinned at her. The smile didn’t reach her eyes.

“Ah, brilliant!” she said. “Just making sure this place is safe. The Watcher’s a potential regeneration, it’s unstable, it shouldn’t be able to pass through a material infused with actual regenerative energy without falling to pieces. This should keep it out.”

The Doctor was still grinning at her as she kept moving, circling the outer wall with light wreathing her hand.

Bleary, Yasmin sat up, stretching slightly. She still wasn’t used to the beds in this village; they were primitive, uncomfortable, the settlement too young to worry about comfort over practicality.

The Doctor still showed no signs of tiredness though, even with liquid gold pouring out of her. She caught Yaz staring.

“Shouldn’t be wasting my energy like this,” the Doctor admitted, at her look. “But apparently I’ve got plenty to spare.”

Then the Doctor turned her attention back to the walls, a look of concentration on her face. Yaz had seen that expression enough times to know she was set on a course.

It was a few minutes more before Yaz finally pulled herself up, stood, and walked to the next room. She waited in there for the others to wake up, warily eyeing the sleeping Missy on the bed.

There were two sticks on the ground, little more than branches; they hadn’t been there the day before. Yaz frowned at them, but didn’t dwell. There were enough other things to be concerned about that felt much more important than someone bringing branches into the hut.

Besides, she was pretty sure the Doctor would explain it soon enough. Basing a plan on a couple of bits of wood was a very Doctor thing to do.

Eventually Ryan, Graham and Nardole emerged too, sleepily coming out to the same room, one after another. The Doctor followed last of all.

“Right!” she said. “Yaz, you’re with me. Nardole told me the access point the villagers found, we’re going to head out there, mess with the computer, then come right back.”

“And what will we be doing?” Ryan said.

“Excellent question!” the Doctor said, her levity not quite ringing as true as it usually did. “Stay here, keep Missy safe. Nardole, you explain things to the villagers, keep them calm. And you two, the Watcher won’t be able to get into this hut so long as you don’t open the door for it.”

“Didn’t seem to have any trouble last night,” Graham said.

“Ah, but that was before,” the Doctor said. She wiggled her fingers, a few fine gold particles falling from them. “Regeneration energy. Same stuff the Watcher’s made out of, only more than potential. It’s like… it’s like pointing a super soaker at a waterfall. Anyone?”

She beamed at her own analogy. The rest of the room seemed less impressed.

“It’d be carried away on the current,” the Doctor said, apparently disappointed. “Lose coherency. Same for those branches if it tries to attack anyone.”

“You want us to hit it?” Ryan said.

“What? No!” the Doctor said. “Just try wafting. The energy infusing them will have the same effect. That should last until we’re back.”

“Right,” Graham said. “So you and Yaz will deal with the cybermen, Nardole will help the villagers, and we’re on wafting duty.”

“Yup!” the Doctor said. “Let’s get a shift on.”

She extended a hand to Yaz. Yaz hesitated for a moment, gaze drifting again to Missy.

Part of her wanted to say something about that. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with leaving Ryan and Graham alone with the Master; judging by their awkward glances, they held a similar wariness. They’d chosen to be silent though. She guessed she’d have to accept that.

That, and she wasn’t sure what else she could say to the Doctor at this point. Reluctantly, Yaz assented, and took the Doctor’s hand. She followed her out the door, and out of the village, keeping an eye out for the spectral figure she’d seen before.

Though which Master she was more wary of, she couldn’t say.

She just hoped Ryan and Graham wouldn’t pay the price if the Doctor was making a mistake.

* * *

East didn’t know what to think. The survivors had fled a battlefield, and it was hard for their nerves to recover from that over just a span of weeks. Of course people were scared.

Nardole had earned his trust though, as far as he was concerned. He’d helped lead them there, he’d helped them survive the first attack.

And the idea for keeping them safe was sound, East reflected. Just so long as-

East walked around a corner, meaning to get back to work on planning out a new hut, and froze.

It didn’t look like a cyberman. No one who’d gotten a good look at the thing could make that mistake, he realised that at once. It was humanoid, yes, and silver-ish, but its body was more ethereal than solid metal.

And the face. Somehow that was more disturbing than the mask the cybermen wore, uncanniness personified.

He opened his mouth to scream, only to lose his voice as _something_ spoke to him. The words felt dropped into his head, resounding around his skull, a dozen voices overlapping.

_I can help you_.

He swallowed, and steadied himself. The white figure loomed before him, uncomfortably tall, but not moving. It wasn’t attacking.

East took a step back anyway as he tried to find his voice.

“What do you want?” he managed.

_You hate the cybermen. The one who helped create them is in this village_.

That got his attention. He’d heard the stories, humans just like them drilled into and twisted, ‘upgraded’ into those metal abominations. He knew what the cybermen were, he knew someone had inflicted the species upon them.

“What?” he said, still struggling to find his voice.

_She’s the one that the new arrivals are watching over. Help me get to her_.

East faltered. No one was quite sure what to make of the new visitor, or any of the new visitors for that matter. There was speculation, of course, people had noticed the wariness the others had of the near-comatose woman, but no one knew why.

But this thing, it had killed, for some reason that thought kept slipping out of his mind. He tried to focus on it, on why he should be running, and kept failing.

The voice filled his head, intense enough that it felt almost like it was overwriting his own thoughts. East rubbed his temple, trying to focus.

The thing’s mouth wasn’t moving.

_What is your name?_

“East,” he said, slightly hoarse. “Who- what are you?”

The thing seemed pleased. There wasn’t much in the way of tone to its speech in his head, they were more like the idea of words than the words themselves, but he could somehow sense joy.

_Well, Mr East, I am the Master. And you will obey me._

* * *

Sometimes Yaz still couldn’t believe this was actually a ship. It felt like earth beneath her feet, the trees surrounding her looked real, and the next floor up was so distant it looked like sky.

The soil gave way under her footsteps as she followed the Doctor, and the Doctor ploughed on following whatever directions she’d been given. It wasn’t often that she had to trust the Doctor actually knew where she was going.

They passed through a spate of bare, leafless trees, before descending a hill covered in dead grass, finally reaching a small pit. The Doctor started running as soon as she spotted it.

“There!” she said. “Right then, let’s do this.”

Yaz caught up, then looked down the hole. It was the one sign that they weren’t just in the middle of some near-lifeless forest.

A circle of metal braced the outside, and further down past it was dull greys and blues, a shaft that had no place in any natural location. Rungs were set into the side. It didn’t seem to fit with the surroundings at all.

“So I’ll keep an eye out, yeah?” Yaz said, uncertain.

“Yep,” the Doctor said. “Anything approaches from up top, you let me know. I’ll get to work down there.”

The Doctor barely hesitated in throwing herself down the hole, by some miracle actually landing on the ladder, and descending a few metres. Warily, Yaz stood overheard, watching the Doctor descend.

She didn’t go far; it was only a little over her height separating her from the tip of the hole, but she’d still left the forest behind completely. A metal panel opened up on the wall, and a few small lights sparked and glittered, a screen glitching from one image to the next as the Doctor ran her sonic over it. She held to the ladder with only one hand.

Yaz took a deep breath, trying to think only about what she was meant to be doing now. She looked around, took in the empty woods, and quickly gave up.

“What are the chances of something actually finding us?” Yaz said.

“You never know,” the Doctor said defensively. “Can you imagine how embarrassing it would be if the cybermen actually found us and stopped us when we were this close?”

“So there’s no danger?” Yaz said.

“There’s never no danger,” the Doctor said.

Yaz sighed.

“Why did you want me out here?” Yaz said. She glanced down again. “Did you just not want me back in the village with _her_?”

The Doctor was still clinging to the ladder with one hand, feet hooked through one of the rungs. She was holding the sonic between her teeth, fingers dancing across what was presumably a touch-screen, before looking up. She took hold of the sonic again to speak.

“What? Yaz, no, I trust you, you do know that right?” the Doctor said.

Yasmin hesitated.

There was an easy answer. Of course she did, they’d been through so much together, and even when things got rough she still always knew she could rely on the Doctor. Part of her just wanted to say that.

But it had felt different, ever since they’d landed here. Yaz wasn’t sure whether she regretted pulling that lever in the first place.

“I thought I did,” Yaz said.

There was a rustle from below. Yaz peered down the shaft again to see the Doctor holding onto the ladder with her other arm now, reaching across the drop for another panel. Her sonic buzzed.

“It’s since we got here,” Yaz said. “I don’t know, I just guess I always thought… we were your priority, I guess. I’m not trying to be selfish, I know you must have known other people, but everywhere we’ve been you always looked out for us first, and the first time you don’t… of all people, it had to be the Master.”

“She’s-”

“I know, she’s different, you said,” Yaz said. She exhaled. “But every time I look at her, I see the man who lied to us, who tried to kill us on that plane, who killed so many people on Earth and then tried to upgrade the cybermen. And _that’s_ who you pick?”

The Doctor faltered.

Yaz winced. She hadn’t meant to say all that, but as soon as she started the rest had poured out, days of confusion and bitterness all blending together.

“I just… I don’t get it,” Yaz said. “It hurts. And she’s not even pretending to be nice, but she’s the one you drop everything for? I’m not- You can- I get being sad, but you act like she never did _any_ of what he did to us.”

She stopped, and for a moment silence filled the faint mist of the woods, broken only by the distant, muted sound of the sonic screwdriver. Unsure of whether she’d gone too far, Yaz looked down again.

The Doctor was still working; now she was focusing on the screen closest to her, eyes focusing on it. It was easier to talk when she didn’t have to face her.

“Do you have any friends you’ve known for ages?” the Doctor said. Her voice sounded odd, echoing up the shaft. “You were kids together, and then you grew up, and grew apart, so all you have are fond memories. Then you met them again and they were… different. You looked at them, and you could see the pieces of who they were, but it was all twisted and angled wrong that nothing clicked the way it did.”

Yaz winced. She could hear a certain hollowness to the Doctor’s tone, and that was the last thing she wanted. She’d _never_ want to hurt the Doctor. She’d just vented, let it out, and it had gotten the best of her.

The Doctor continued, barely taking a breath.

“Missy is… The Master used to be so good at deceit. Disguises, lies, the number of people he convinced that he was their friend is beyond belief, and he always stabbed them in the back. If Missy’s making it easier to hate her, then that’s better. She’s not lying to you. She’s… harsh, but she’s not trying to manipulate you.”

A breath, and the faint sound of tapping from below.

Yaz remembered the Master, and how effortlessly he’d convinced all of them they were on the same side. He hadn’t seemed dangerous. He’d been amiable, easygoing, utterly unthreatening; it was still hard to reconcile him with who he’d become.

Was that really how he always acted? Yaz shuddered.

“Does that make it better?” Yaz said.

“No, but…” the Doctor said. She was quiet for a few seconds, before she sighed. “Missy is… for the first time in so, so long, I can see my friend in her again. She reminds me of who she was, and she’s honest. It’s not a lie. It’s a second chance I never thought I’d have, not in a million years, and I don’t want to give up on it. I _can’t_.”

There was a sense of wonder in the Doctor’s voice. Yaz had heard it before, talking about historical figures she looked up to, talking about stars or natural wonders, talking about the best of humanity.

And now, talking about a murderer.

Though it was easy to lose track of that just with how the Doctor was talking. Quietly, Yaz sat down on the ground, giving the empty forest a last once-over.

“We had such fun,” the Doctor said fondly. “More than a century of it, classes together, and sneaking out at nights, exploring, or staying in and helping each other, or cheating off each other. Standing up to bullies together, or just playing together. There were others, sure, a whole group of us, and we thought we could change the universe, but he was always special, even back then. I can’t just forget that, no matter what’s happened since.”

The Doctor was just staring at the wall now, almost forgetting about the screen entirely. Yaz swallowed, watching her in silence as she came back to reality, catching herself, and tried to focus on what she was doing.

She’d never heard the Doctor talk about _anyone_ like that. She still wasn’t sure she agreed with it but, at least, she could start to understand it.

Yaz stared down for a long few moments more. There was something else in the Doctor’s voice, and Yaz wasn’t sure how it made her feel.

She waited. Then she took a deep breath.

“Doctor?”

“Mm?”

“Did you love her?”

Yaz held her breath. The Doctor said nothing.

The sound of her voice, that fondness, that smile Yaz had never seen before, she knew what she thought it meant. She just wasn’t sure.

A century, the Doctor had said. It was more than enough time.

Yaz looked down again, to see the Doctor still hanging there as if thinking.

“It’s hard,” the Doctor said eventually. “There aren’t any analogues, not really. I’m not human, and I was _less_ human back then, what we had wasn’t anything like anything I could put into words for you.”

She hesitated.

“Sorry,” the Doctor said.

It was an answer. More than that, it was an answer Yaz finally felt she could understand. Falling out of love was perhaps one of the hardest things in the world. Harder still, if you didn’t _want_ to.

She swallowed. The Doctor stayed tapping and sonicking away, the degree to which she split her attention undeniably impressive.

“I wanted to know so badly what had happened to her,” the Doctor said, seemingly out of nowhere. “I wanted it to be something big, something special, something that _meant_ something. Instead it was too simple. Her next regeneration is different. That’s all it ever was. And… she deserved better.”

“I’m sorry,” Yaz said.

And, strangely, she found she meant it.

The Master was part of a story. She hadn’t been thinking about that; the one she’d seen had been the tragedy, the failure, not the one from the story’s start. There might have been something worth caring about then.

No, there _must_ have been. She trusted the Doctor.

“It happens,” the Doctor said, trying to sound light. “I’ve seen enemies become friends, friends become enemies, I’ve… I’ve done things I like to think I never would have in any other life. It’s the one thing you can’t control, however much you try to keep to your core. I just hoped she’d get more of a chance.”

Yaz didn’t know what to say to that. She wasn’t sure how to respond to a lot of Time Lord stuff.

Regeneration was still overwhelming to think about. She’d heard it mentioned enough times, but it still baffled her to think of anyone changing totally, or thinking of the Doctor being someone other than who she was.

And then there was just waiting. It was a little easier to bear the silence now.

And then:

“A-ha!” the Doctor cried.

Yaz peered down the gap again, seeing her still staring at the screen.

“What did you find?” Yaz said.

“The perfect cover,” the Doctor said. “There’s a chemical running through a few pipes here that messes with cyber sensory systems, if I say there’s a leak of that, and of an aurum-based gas, yeah! That’ll do it. Now to just get into their database…”

She started running her sonic up and down the walls again, finding an entryway. Yaz breathed a sigh of relief and sat back. She spared another glance around the woods again; she didn’t expect to see anything, and sure enough, they were still alone.

It wasn’t the cybermen they had to fear.

“This… Watcher,” Yaz said. “Is it going to get in the way of us?”

“No,” the Doctor said. She hesitated. “I don’t know. Probably not. No reason to.”

“You don’t sound sure,” Yaz said. She peered down again curiously.

“I’m not,” the Doctor said. “They’re not meant to _do_ anything. Keep an eye out, just in case.”

Yaz nodded, but her gaze lingered for a moment down the shaft. The Doctor chewed her lower lip in concentration, alternately sonicking and tapping on the screen with her little finger.

She could see the impatience in the Doctor’s eyes, and at last she actually understood why.

“I get it,” Yaz said.

“Hm?” the Doctor said, muffled by the sonic again held between her teeth.

“Losing her, saying goodbye,” Yaz said. “You deserve that at least. I shouldn’t have got in the way.”

Silence answered her for a few seconds. Yaz craned her head out, looking down again; the Doctor only answered once the screwdriver was back in her hand.

“You’ve nothing to apologise for,” the Doctor said. “If I did anything that made you feel like you were anything less, that’s on me. You’re incredible, I just… I got distracted from a lot of this. I wanted to say goodbye, that’s all.”

“I hope you get the chance,” Yaz said.

Maybe that was why it seemed to be just her that was objecting; Ryan and Graham would know more than most how it was to lose someone without a chance to say a proper goodbye.

Maybe. Yaz tore her eyes away, staring off into the distance for a moment. Honestly, it still felt odd to her thinking of the Master meaning that much more to the Doctor, though only if she imagined him as the one she’d known.

A blank face, an old friend, though… Whoever it was, the Doctor deserved closure.

“Are you sure…” Yaz began. She caught herself.

“Yaz?” came the voice from up the shaft.

“The Master,” Yaz said. “Are you sure the one we met comes before? You always talk about how dangerous it is to mess with time, but if she doesn’t-”

“He has to,” the Doctor said.

“You’re sure?” Yaz said. “We’re not running into a paradox or anything?”

“He _must_ ,” the Doctor said just as firmly. “The universe wouldn’t be that cruel. She’s going to have peace, like she wanted, she’s going to be proud of who she is to the last and I am going to be there, and nothing in any world is going to stop that.”

Any other time, if the Doctor had spoken like that, Yaz would have believed her if she said she was going to stop the world turning. Now, she could hear how scared she was.

Yaz glanced around the forest again. Being unnerved came far more easily just then.

“Then you’d better hurry up,” Yaz said. “Get back there for her. I’ll be with you.”

“On it!” the Doctor said.

She glanced up, for a moment meeting Yaz’s eyes, and flashed a grin that promised success. With renewed vigour, she turned her attention back to the panel.

* * *

Ryan and Graham sat on two chairs. They sighed, bored, each holding one of the infused sticks the Doctor had left for them.

Ryan opened his mouth to say something, looking sideways, then shrugged; there was remarkably little to talk about. After a while, it was impressive how banal colonies in space in danger could become.

He looked at Missy; she was still sleeping, and it might have been his imagination but she seemed a little paler than before. She was barely even twitching now.

There was a knock at the door.

“I’ll get it,” Ryan said, before Graham could stand.

He moved a little too quickly, glad for the chance to actually do something, and went to answer. Just one man stood on the other side; it took Ryan a moment to remember his name.

“East, right?” Ryan said.

“The glowing man was seen,” East said, slightly breathless. “He’s on the other side of the village. He tried to lunge for someone.”

“He was?” Ryan said.

He glanced back at Graham, and gripped his stick tighter. Graham gestured.

“You go take care of it,” Graham said. “I’ve got her.”

Ryan nodded. The branch in his hand glinted gold as he hefted it up a bit higher.

“Show me where,” Ryan said. “I can make sure it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

East nodded and turned around. Ryan didn’t notice how remarkably dull his eyes were.

And then he led Ryan off, leaving just Graham watching over Missy and the hut.

* * *

“That’s it!” the Doctor said.

She leaned back, almost toppling off the ladder and needing to make a desperate grab for a rung. She steadied herself, and pushed the panel back to hide her tracks.

“You done?” Yaz said.

“The cyber database aboard this ship now believes the whole deck is too dangerous to do any more than hurry through, and that anything seen on it is probably a hallucination,” the Doctor said. “With a bit more technobabble mixed in. They’ll never worry about it. The place is safe.”

Yaz breathed a sigh of relief; whatever else was going on, keeping people safe from the cybermen had to be a priority.

The Doctor hurriedly climbed back up the ladder. Breathless, she pulled herself back up onto the soil.

“Quick!” the Doctor said. “We’re done here, time to get back.”

She barely paused, heading off before she’d even turned around. Yaz pushed herself back up to her feet and followed.

She’d seen the Doctor run for a lot of reasons, still, she rarely seemed this motivated even when a giant monster was after them. Yaz tried to keep up, only stumbling a little.

“Slow down!” Yaz called.

“Can’t,” the Doctor said.

She jumped down a hill. Yaz trailed along behind her, moving at a somewhat more reasonable pace, despite her best efforts.

“I need to be there for her,” the Doctor said. “Whatever happens. I’m going to be by her side.”

Yaz understood that; she fell silent, and just tried to keep the Doctor inside. The forest was plain, hard to navigate, with little more than the fact she was pretty sure she’d come from this direction to guide her.

Thankfully, as they crested the next hill, they glimpsed the top of a hut. Yaz breathed a sigh of relief and kept on. The Doctor, meanwhile, sped up; the village was in sight.

“It isn’t fair that this is it,” the Doctor murmured. Yaz wasn’t sure if she even meant to talk aloud. “I just wish we had more time. But every second counts.”

There was a fenced off field towards the edge of the village, out of the way. The Doctor skidded, not to a halt but at least to slow down, once she had to weave among people, passing near the side. She did a double take as she spotted someone in the crowd.

“Ryan?” she said.

“Watcher was apparently seen here,” he said, by way of explanation. He waved his stick. “But no one says they’ve seen it, and the guy that led me here vanished. Trying to find him.”

Yaz came to a stop, gulping down a grateful breath of air as she recovered from the sprint. She looked up, just in time to see the Doctor’s eyes widen in horror. Ryan took a moment longer.

And then she was running again. Yaz groaned, but summoned up the stamina to follow, Ryan in tow.

The Doctor’s mind was working too frantically to piece every little bit together, but it was clear enough something was wrong.

Nardole’s hut came into view. The door was open.

Somehow the Doctor put on a burst of yet more speed, just in time for a white figure to materialise not far from the door. It didn’t even look back as it went inside; the Doctor followed, seconds too late.

Graham was on the floor, and East was there, eyes dull, kneeling.

And the Doctor faltered. It was just for an instant, just for that moment as she crossed the threshold and took in the scene before her. Those she’d left, those she’d trusted had been tricked or overpowered, Graham, without Ryan’s aid, unable to fend off East, and Missy was left on the ground.

She was stirring. Missy’s eyes cracked open, but her limbs were too heavy to move, most of her body cold; only one heart still beat and it was strained, failing.

“No,” she murmured. “ _No_.”

East was kneeling, one hand on Missy’s cheek while the other was raised, touching some indistinct point of the Watcher. He was just staring at the wall, unresponsive, apparently unaware of what he was a part of. It was only for a split second when he blinked that he seemed to come back to himself, that his eyes widened.

It was the same instant that the Watcher’s blank face, its cracked mouth, spread in what could almost pass for a smile.

And then there was just one figure in the room. The Watcher faded, blurring away to mere light, and Missy vanished fractions of a moment later, an afterimage of her hanging in the air over the body that was East’s.

Then there was just light, and the Doctor staggered closer.

Barely thinking, she stuck an arm out, gesturing for Ryan and Yaz to keep back. She stared, wordless, wary, as the Watcher-born light that wreathed East faded, a parody of regeneration swallowing him.

It wasn’t that he looked different. It was just that he seemed… younger, like this was who he’d be if he’d led a different, shorter life. A few lines on his face faded, a few streaks of white faded, and his cheekbones shifted just slightly. Lots of tiny changes that made him suddenly too familiar.

Two deaths in the same instant.

“Too late, Doctor,” the Master said.

The Doctor didn’t need to turn to imagine Yaz and Ryan freezing, to imagine their reaction. She knew how they felt about this incarnation. She knew how _she_ felt about this incarnation.

“Master,” she said.

He stood there. The tattered clothes of the villager were incongruous, but forgettable; as soon as he straightened, it was almost impossible to look away from his face. He smiled.

“You didn’t have to do this,” the Doctor said.

She wasn’t moving either. Her hands shook slightly, the briefest flicker of an anger she was trying very, very hard to keep restrained.

This wasn’t what was meant to happen. Missy was supposed to have peace, she was supposed to _be there_ , to actually have the chance to say goodbye. She hadn’t wanted that, but Missy had, and she respected that.

And it was better than this, than decades lost to a throwback regeneration that would rather prioritise the power and selfishness than all the good Missy had been capable of.

But she’d faltered. So, yes, she was angry, and she couldn’t say who she was angrier at.

“Oh, my dear Doctor, of course I did,” he said, before any trace of amiability faded. He glared. “I wasn’t going to die, especially not for you. I _don’t_ die.”

He paused, eyes running over the trio, and the unconscious Graham. He grimaced; freshly regenerated, or the equivalent of it, he probably didn’t trust the odds.

He didn’t smile, then. He showed his teeth, but it certainly wasn’t any kind of smile.

“You would’ve let me die,” he said. “I’d almost be impressed if you had the spine, but no, you couldn’t actually do it yourself. You just _watched_. You’re pathetic. Don’t think I’ll forget this; I wanted better from you, of all people.”

He took a step back. The Doctor stared, opening her mouth before deciding whatever she had to say was apparently futile. Some silent agony in her eyes, she watched him move back.

Then he charged, out of nowhere grabbing a chair; it was hard to do anything but dive out the way, and he forced his way out past them, and through the doorway.

“I wanted better from you, Doctor!” he shouted.

And he was gone, and the Doctor almost fell to the ground.

She managed to make it to another chair, and nodding in appreciation as Ryan hurried to check on Graham, halfway to doing it herself. She was glad of the chance to just stop for the moment.

She felt… drained was too mild a word.

Technically she had her answer. That was why they’d come here after all, she’d wanted to find out how Missy had become the Master she’d seen. It was hard to feel satisfied though. People had died, and fate’s inescapable hand had reached down to force things onto their proper course.

She’d let herself hope.

And she’d lost her friend again.

There was movement. She jerked her head up suddenly, as if some miracle would have seen him come back. Instead, it was just Nardole in the doorway.

He looked around, to the collapsed Doctor, to Ryan and Yaz, to the slowly stirring Graham, and to the empty bed.

“Oh,” he said eventually. “It didn’t go well?”

* * *

The four of them trudged in silence over the earth as they found their way back to where the TARDIS had landed. It was hard to find the words. It was harder still to find words that didn’t feel empty.

So they let the hollow sound of the chilly air fill the quiet, following the Doctor through the bare trees and over half-dead ground.

The artificiality of their surroundings was only just starting to become apparent. It might just have been having spent so much time there that the cracks started to show, but the sky looked the wrong colour, and glints of something could be seen past the blue, and the sound of the air was wrong. It was all so wrong.

Or perhaps it was just harder to cling to a comforting illusion now.

They made it to the familiar police box, a sigh of relief going through the group as soon as they saw it perched on a hill.

The Doctor unlocked it, and the alien hum replaced the eerie whistling of the unreal wind, somehow far more comforting a sound. For once, the Doctor didn’t run over to the console. She walked slowly, distractedly.

“So what now?” Yaz broke the silence. “Do we follow him?”

“Nothing,” the Doctor said.

“Say what?” Ryan said. “I thought you wanted to stop him.”

“I _did_ ,” the Doctor said. “When I thought I might be able to. I hoped… I hoped I was wrong about the order, I could convince myself of that.”

She didn’t turn around, resting both hands on the edge of the console and staring at the rotor. She closed her eyes.

“Now he gets away,” the Doctor said. “We’re on a ship, so he’ll probably find his way to an escape pod, or defeat the cybermen just to take control of it. Then he can fly away. Or there’s a black hole outside, he could use that – they’re like potato clocks to us. He’ll end up on Gallifrey to get his own TARDIS, and while there he’ll look in the Matrix, and… everything. There’s no stopping it. No _point_ to stopping it.”

Almost angrily, she flicked a lever. The engines started to groan as the TARDIS took off.

She shouldn’t have done it. She shouldn’t have taken the risk, tried to change time banking on the million to one chance that Missy came after, relying on someone else to sort out any potential paradoxes. That was stupid. That was stupid, insanely risky, dangerous…

And she wished she’d succeeded despite all that.

She lingered by the console, feeling the gentle hum of the machine beneath her hands. There was something comforting about that familiarity. It wasn’t much, but it was something to cling onto.

And then someone was behind her. She jumped, feeling the presence, and then feeling a hand gently rest on the back of hers.

“It’s okay,” Yaz murmured.

Familiarity.

Travelling between lifetimes always made things blur together. Standing on that ground, standing by Missy, it had almost been like she hadn’t regenerated, like no time had passed.

An anchor to the now helped her focus again, though it didn’t give her any more energy. It was strange how common a feeling exhaustion was becoming. She could run for miles on a normal day and barely break a sweat, but recently…

She was tired of losing people.

“I didn’t want to say goodbye,” the Doctor said. “Especially not like _that_.”

And she’d hesitated. The Doctor swallowed, trying not to think about that too much.

“You believed in her?” Yaz said.

“Of course I did,” the Doctor said. “She was… They’ve always been brilliant, but she was the one that really realised it.”

“Then maybe it’ll happen again someday,” Yaz said. “You still have a chance to get to him, now. If that’s what you want.”

If he’d listen. The Doctor said nothing.

It was a nice thought. No, it was more than that; it was something to strive for, even if this new version of the Master seemed much less inclined to listen. There’d be more.

It felt over, but that didn’t mean it was. The Doctor closed her eyes, balled her hands into fists, and for a moment focused on that.

Then she managed to turn around. She beamed, but the smile still didn’t reach her eyes, not yet. She’d give it time.

“Thanks,” she said. “So, where to next? That was a bit of an unplanned diversion, but-”

“Doctor.”

It was Graham that spoke then. She faltered.

“If you need anyone,” he said. “You’re always there for us, we can be there for you. You do know that, right?”

“You can talk to us,” Ryan said.

They were looking at her. They had such sincerity on their faces, whatever they’d felt before.

A little of the tension left the Doctor’s body. Not much, but even a little counted. She felt Yaz squeeze her hand.

“Things’ll be okay,” Yaz said. “Whatever happens.”

And for just a moment, with all of them there, she found she could believe it. Whatever the Master was now, and whatever he’d become, things weren’t over.

She managed a smile.

“Yeah,” the Doctor said. That time the brightness did reach her eyes. “Yeah, me and my fam? Of _course_ things’ll be great.” 


End file.
